A Northern Ireland businessman has criticised the political parties here for being ‘bloody useless’ when it comes to dealing with Brexit.

John Lennon, who is the head of cloud computing firm Novosco, said he was depressed by local politics.

He claimed no-one was prepared to fight for the region.

The Belfast-based business emerged from two companies in 2007. Patrick McAliskey first set up Real Time Systems back in 1994 and 13 years later joined forces with Mr Lennon’s 4sol to form Novosco.

When it was established, the tech firm had 40 staff in a single office. By the end of last year, that had risen to just under 180 in offices in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Manchester.

On the subject of Brexit, in an interview with the Sunday Business Post yesterday, Mr Lennon hit out: “Northern Ireland politics depress me, and I think a lot of the business community feel the same. To be honest, I just ignore the politicians here because they’re all bloody useless. There’s nobody fighting for us in Westminster. We’ve got no voice. It’s a complete disaster, but we just have to get on with it.”

With turnover now at around £30m per year, the remainder of 2018 will include continuing to grow Novosco’s business in Dublin and Cork and further possible acquisitions.

Mr Lennon added that one possible upside of Brexit will be an influx of firms to the Republic which may be in the market for Novosco’s services. Current clients include Cork County Council, large London-based housing association Metropolitan Housing, and several National Health Service (NHS) trusts.

The large food producer Moy Park is another customer, as are Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University, Belfast.